The Creative Cycle at Nintendo

Here's an encapsulated, abbreviated excerpt from a presentation today by the CEO of Nintendo (Iwata) and Miyamoto, head game designer for Nintendo. He gets gaming in a way that few others do. He is an inspiration for me for his ability to take life experiences and translate them into art. This excerpt hits many familiar points of the creative process.

Excerpted from:
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/25/joystiq-live-from-nintendos-gdc-2009-keynote/#continued

Iwata recounts his history with HAL Laboratory working with Nintendo - when presenting a game to Nintendo, he was told "This is not bad. With a few months, this could become a quality game." Iwata says he was "speechless."

"We did not have a few more months. We had very little time. In fact, we had two more days." Without the revenue, they would report a loss for the year, lose their funding, and enter a "death spiral." Death spiral = Financial pressure + less time + poorer quality, culminating in lower sales.

Iwata restructured the company to make better games - he believed Nintendo was able to make better games because they had more money. Now, he understands this better. The way HAL and Nintendo did things were not at all the same.

Miyamoto's gardening hobby turned into Pikmin; he got a new dog, and that turned into Nintendogs; exercise turned into WiiFit.

Iwata jokes that he asked Miyamoto to never talk about his hobbies outside of work – he's on a 24/7 non-disclosure agreement.

MIYAMOTO'S WAY - "Upward Spiral"

1. Ideas are everywhere
2. Personal Communication
3. Prototype Stage

He shows off a very rough "prototype" of Wii Boxing, encouraging developers to spend more time on the game's mechanics. "The amount of time being spent on the game's graphics was zero. Perhaps you can tell that."

4. Small Teams
5. Multiple Projects
6. Trial and Error

"Sometimes no matter how hard they work, the small teams struggle to meet their objective. That prototype phase can last two years." If they set a project aside, that's the nature of trial and error. "For Mr. Miyamoto, prototype making allows for the most trial and error where the smallest number of developers" can work on the game. "This is one of the most important characteristics of Mr. Miyamoto's approach that I have observed."

"Of course, with so many project going on at one time" some make it beyond that prototype stage. So, the last stage: The Mass Production Stage. Mr. Miyamato, who began as Iwata's mentor, now reports to him. Not always a pleasant scenario.

Once one of Iwata's latest hobbies reaches the prototype stage, he makes it a point to not ask about how it's going. It makes it difficult for Iwata to predict when a product can begin to generate revenue – "which is not very good for my mental health."

If they throw out an idea, that work is not wasted. "I have seen some of these ideas show up years later," Iwata says.

--hal